The field of the invention is generally integrated development environment (IDE) applications. Computer implemented products (e.g. software) are commonly developed in a distributed environment. Often developers will be in geographically distant locations, whereas support engineers, for example, L3 engineers, will often be located in yet another location.
An integrated development environment (IDE) (also referred to as integrated design environment or integrated debugging environment) is an application providing comprehensive facilities to developers for software development. An IDE typically contains one or more of a source code editor, a compiler/interpreter, automation tools, debugger, a version control system and various other tools can be integrated to simplify the construction of the graphical user interface (GUI). Many IDEs also have a class browser, an object inspector, and a class hierarchy diagram for use with object-oriented software development.
Products tend to evolve over time, accumulating various changes. In a software product which has existed for quite sometime (for example around 10 years or more), thousands of lines of code (LOC) are segregated into different components. New features get added to such complex products with each release by different developers/architects around the world. It may be important, for example, for an L3 support engineer located in a distant geographic location to know how the functional flow is implemented for the feature and how the data gets changed at various functions. Also when a new member joins the support team, he or she should be given some sort of a code level component/function flow and data flow lessons.
Typically a developer will, for example, make changes to the product that impact many different LOC. The developer implementing the change(s) needs to communicate to the support engineers and other team members what has been changed, particularly in terms of function calls and returns and how the corresponding data is modified, i.e. function/data flow information. This is currently accomplished in a knowledge transfer session, where a developer will make a separate presentation to the other team members; e.g. using a flow chart such as produced by PowerPoint® or as a text document.
In view of the forgoing, the inventors have recognized a need for improving upon conventional arrangements.